


and all the trees of the field will clap their hands

by Seiya234



Series: Transcendence AU [24]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29101299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seiya234/pseuds/Seiya234
Summary: When Stan, Ford, and Dipper take the triplets for a summer vacation of family history and beach shenanigans in New Jersey, Mabel and Henry are left to celebrate their second honeymoon in the forests in Gravity Falls.Too bad for them that it only takes three days for the monsters to appear.
Series: Transcendence AU [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/160475
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

There are three ways this story begins: the short way, the medium way, and the long way.

—————————————

The short way was one day in the dying days of autumn, Stan got a call from Ford, who was on the Atlantic right now and headed towards New Jersey and

“Have the children ever been to New Jersey? To Glass Shard Beach?”

Stan adjusted the phone in the crook of his shoulder while he began to stir the bowl of Stancakes he was making, and coughed without covering his mouth.

“I think Mark took the twins when they were, fuck, six? The kids though? Never.”

“Well. I would love to see you.”

(In this universe do Stan and Ford share the ease and togetherness of other, more canon realms? No- their paths met for but a year or two before diverging again. But there was no anger, no bitterness, no sorrow in their parting, and a good relationship is still a good relationship.)

“Me too.” An idea hatched in Stan’s mind.

“When did you say you’d be in harbor again?”

—

“I have a proposition for you kiddo.”

“And I get frightened when you start using five dollar words old man.” Dipper laid down a three card book of jacks.

“Yeah yeah yeah. Look, this year’s been fucking trash right?”

Dipper thought about it. Then he thought about it again. The kids had turned 15….and then in the year following, Willow almost died, Henry became something Eldritch and Unknowable, Willow killed a grown woman, Henry was kidnapped, and they started teaching the kids how to drive.

Their 16th birthday party, while still having some of that patented Pines (mabel) Madness, was noticeably a little more subdued and scaled down than it probably would have been.

“Ford’s coming to Glass Shard right after Christmas, and since the kids don’t have to go back until middle of January, we were thinking-“

Stan laid down a run, a 4-5-6 of hearts off of Dipper’s 7-8-9. “Why don’t you and me take the kids to see Ford?”

Dipper’s brow furrowed. “You and me- what about Mabel and Henry?”

“I was thinking that maybe they’d like some time.” Stan raised an eyebrow. “ _Alone_ Dipper.”

Dipper raised his hands defensively. “Hey! I didn’t show up for their honeymoon or anything.”

“Yeah cookie for you. And when was the last time they had more than two days alone? Uninterrupted? By the kids or you?”

“Uh.” Dipper thought about it. Then he blushed. “Uh.” He drew a card.

“Exactly.” Stan laid down a book of aces, and discarded his last card, going out. “I’ll call Ford, you tell the kids.”

“What about Mabel and Henry?”

Stan snorted. “They said yes before I could finish.”

——————————————-

The long way this story begins is in 1866, when a callow and cruel young man with a trunk of grey clothes and a bloody saber inside landed in the newish state of Oregon to start a new life.

What is this young man’s name? I could tell you, but quite frankly he was a hateful piece of shit, so I’d rather not.

Here’s what you need to know about him.

He was the bosom friend of Nathaniel Northwest- they had fought side by side in the same regiment, and when the young man needed somewhere to run fast, it was Nathaniel who promised to smooth the way in return for working for him- he was strong, right? And Nathaniel knew he wasn’t adverse to rousting out some trash.

He was handsome. He towered over almost everyone in town, arms and legs draped with muscle, beautiful blonde hair, all of his teeth, and a smile that never reached his blue eyes.

And no one ever told him no. 

He was loved by girls who didn’t know better, and enjoyed by women who knew to keep him at arms’ length. He was offered many favors, and he took advantage of each and every one. 

A few times those favors ended with squalling, squealing piglets, red and angry and helpless. And the young poacher would take them from the homes of his cast off swains, promising to deliver the babe to a cousin’s farm the next county over, to a man running a tavern who needed the help, to a childless spinster he had heard about…

He took them to a pit he had in the forest, where he tossed them in and then covered them in dirt until the squealing stopped. 

Mayhap some one suspected. But he was handsome and the friend of the town founder.

And no one ever told him no. 

A fan of taking things out of season was our young man. In his hut he scalped the fur from foxes with dugs still full of milk and bear cubs that hadn’t even had the time to accumulate fat to use. The corpses of deer laid out back, the meat rotting on the corpse while the young man only desired the antlers for his home. The little corn he bothered to plant withered on the stalk, choked by weeds in an un-hoed field. 

It should go without saying of course that any pigs or cows or horses he found wandering, branded or not, soon became his cattle. For the Huntsman took what he pleased and did what he wanted. He ate and drank and killed and fucked 

And no one ever told him no. 

Until one day when he ran into the Corduroy girl in the woods. 

The men at the tavern told him to be wary of Etta Corduroy; she had a way of riling up their wives and giving them ideas. Nathaniel Northwest told him to be wary of Etta Corduroy; she had been talking with his loggers, giving them ideas. And his current swain told him to be wary of Etta Corduroy; for she spent far too much time alone in the woods.

(they called her a witch. and since this was gravity falls, they were right.)

But still when the young man saw her gathering mushrooms near his hut, he went to her. But still his hand strayed to her breasts when she rebuffed him. But still he grabbed her throat when she tried to scratch him, tried to run away.

Because no one ever told him no.

Not if they knew what was good for them. 

So it was to his great surprise that when Etta Corduroy managed to get a hand on his chest, and spat out some unknowable word, that the world itself told him no.

It felt like a horse kicked him in the chest. It felt like the blood in his veins suddenly turned into boiling steam. Every cut he had ever gotten on his skin suddenly opened up, every muscle in his body seized up going rock hard and rigid, and it was hard to breathe, it was hard to see, it was hard to do anything at all except to fall down on the ground and writhe in pain as Etta ran away. 

She ran away and she left him there. She left him there, bleeding and screaming and sobbing, covered in blood and spit, piss and tears, raining down from his body to feed the earth below him, the pit that he had tossed so many bodies in before. 

Perhaps in his final moments the cruel callow youth should have been scared. But what he was instead was incandescently angry, because these were _his_ woods, his to do with what he wanted, his his _HIS-_

And no one, ever, ever, told him no.

It was as his breath was growing shallow, as a disconcerting amount of deer began to circle around him, that he noticed the bright yellow triangle floating above him.

“… what?”

“WHOOPSIE CHAMP! LOOKS LIKE THAT WITCH DID A NUMBER ON YOU!”

“that… that…that _bitch_.”

“PERSONALLY I THINK THERE’S BETTER THINGS TO DO WITH ORGANS THAN EXPLODE THEM BUT THAT’S NOT WHY I’M HERE.”

The Huntsman coughed up more blood. It launched up in the air before splattering all over his face.

“YEESH. GROSS. SO YEAH, CAN’T SAVE YOUR LIFE. BUT I CAN OFFER YOU SOMETHING EVEN BETTER!”

“What…. what would it cost me?”

“ONLY THE LOW LOW PRICE OF YOUR SOUL! BUT DON’T WORRY! AS LONG AS YOU DO ̡W͠H͝A͟T I̢ ͜SAY̢ , I’LL NEVER COME TO COLLECT!”

“What do you want?”

“I’VE GOT SOME BIG PLANS FOR THIS TOWN- NEVER YOU MIND WHAT- AND I COULD USE AN ENFORCER.”

“And-?”

“AND THESE WOODS WOULD BE YOURS BUCKO! YOURS TO DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO!”

No one ever told him no.

“Deal.”

–

Roadkill County, as it eventually became to be named, was always mostly forest. Even after a century and a half of logging, the forest remained, endured, survived.

But.

But there were always parts of the forest that were stripped bare.

There were parts of the forest where the Corduroys, noted by all and sundry to be the finest woodspeople in the state, refused to go.

There were parts of the forest where children would enter and never be seen again.

This is what Bill offered the Huntsman.

(for he was no longer the Callow Callous Youth, and he was certainly no longer Bruce Wilder)

The forest was the Huntsman’s to do with as he pleased, though he could only be corporeal during the light of the full moon-

(A CONVIENENT PLOT HOLE, I KNOW KID, BUT LOOK, YOU’RE DEAD, WORK WITH ME HERE)

But during that time he could hunt and do as he pleased. Meat could pass his lips, his arrows would hit true, and any person that crossed his path was his to toy and play with until they broke. 

And to help him do his bidding….and to amuse him when he was bored and intangible, the Huntsman was gifted with the souls of the pit, tiny mewling creatures finally turned to some purpose-

(SO THESE ARE YOUR BASIC LEVEL GHOULS POWERED BY FORSAKEN CHILDREN; I ADJUSTED THE SETTINGS SO YOU CAN PLAY WITH WHAT THEY CAN DO. SERIOUSLY, GO NUTS.)

-for they were his hounds in the hunt, they could harrow and harm his prey and in turn he had something he could hunt on the nights when the full moon was absent. 

There was only one hard rule, and that was he could never, ever leave the forest that surrounded Gravity Falls.

(”Why..?” His vision was fading but before whatever happened, he just… he just needed to _know_ -

“YOU KNOW I DON’T NORMALLY ANSWER QUESTIONS FOR FREE,” the triangle said, twirling a cane that came out of nowhere. “BUT LETS JUST SAY THERE’S THINGS IN THIS FOREST THAT COULD INTERFERE WITH MY PLANS. AND I THINK YOU’LL DO SOME GOOD WORK HERE KID. JUST DO AS I SAY AND N̤̪̦̖̥͡ͅͅE͏͖̹̫̬V̬̼̼Ḛ̛̳͓R̯̥͕͖̬ ͉̝̼̟̮͢L͔̪E̝̳͔͟A̻̟͕̝̥̖͞V̶͈̗E̛̝.”

Well. It still seemed like he was coming out on top here.)

However, eventually the thrill of the chase paled, eventually rumors of his presence spread and both the human and non-human inhabitants of Gravity Falls learned to avoid the forest at the full moon. 

He turned to playing with his Beasts, growing crueler and crueler the more his boredom grew.

Yet despite his ennui, there was one other thing that kept the Huntsman in the forest, deal or no deal. For this is what the callous young man had found out after he had died.

There was no heaven.

There was no hell.

There was just life, endless, endless, endless rounds of life.

(some would marvel at the endless chances, endless possibilities for beauty and love and good food and song but we have already established that the callous young man was not that kind of person) 

However.

Within this cycle were also the times in between.

The times where potentially very very angry people would be waiting for you. 

So he waited, and hunted, and feasted, and waited.

And one day Bill was gone, and the deal was off, and that should have been it for the Huntsman but instead of dissipating he only felt himself grow more powerful. 

For the Huntsman had so long existed independent of Bill’s plans (indeed he never saw the triangle again), had established over a century of terror a reputation, that the knowledge of his story and the raw power of the Transcendence released some of the bonds on him and his Beasts. No longer were they bound by the light of the full moon. Though they still could not leave the forest, now his prey was limitless.

He had gotten perhaps a week or two of finally being able to _live_ again when he was cornered by the Multibear. 

“I always wanted to fell you,” the Huntsman said, his Beasts snapping and slavering at his heels. 

The Multibear did not leap to his bait. “This is your warning Huntsman.”

“Warning?” The Huntsman lifted his arm, to show his newest acquisition, a coat of red caps, some still crusted with dried blood. “I am tireless. I am deathless. And you are my prey. What warning could you possibly give me?”

“I am warning you now; refrain from killing the sentient creatures of this forest, focus your sick attentions on the deer and rabbits.”

“Or else what?”

One of the Multibear’s heads smirked. “Surely, you are aware that a new demon arose in Bill’s place?”

The Huntsman rolled his eyes. “And what of it? He’s but a mere stripling. And he and his sister have never run into me, never heard of my story.”

“Have you considered that what Bill gave you, Alcor could take away?”

“That is just wishful thinking.”

The Multibear turned- turned! exposing his back!- away, with one head saying over his shoulder, “Look inside of yourself. Dwell. And you will find that it is the truth.”

The Huntsman paused. He stood still for a solid minute.

Then the blood drained from his face.

Okay. 

Okay, he could handle this. 

He just needed to wait until Alcor stopped living in Gravity Falls, moved out of that shack that the Mad Man built and the Con Man ran.

(the Con Man had once shot the cap off of his head as he had approached his shack. The Huntsman swore vengeance… he was just going to get to it. Eventually.)

The Huntsman waited. And waited. And waited.

For no one ever told him no. 

Until one day one of his Beasts brought him news of a deal it had overheard. 

A deal whereupon Alcor would be gone for two weeks, sworn by his power and blood to do so. 

The Huntsman, who was still obviously a colossal piece of shit, had unfortunately learned patience. And cunning. And dark magic.

He had a plan to make the forest truly his. A plan to make Gravity Falls his.

And from there well.

With his power, and the power he hoped to take, who knew where a bright, callous and callow youth could go from here? 

—

The medium way this story begins is on day three of the Super Awesome Second Honeymoon No Kid Vacation. 

Days one and two were scrubbing the house top to bottom. It was boring but the kids and Stan and Dipper were going to be gone for two weeks. Two! Weeks!!! Mabel thought it best to get the boring stuff out of the way first, to best optimize their time for smoochin, shenanigans, and sparkle spaghetti night.

So Henry lifted Mabel up so she could clean the gutters, and he mopped the whole house. She scrubbed the tubs and he fixed the basement door. They trimmed some tree limbs, changed the oil in the cars, put the zipline up for the winter, and all the other little things that needed doing but got lost in the hustle of raising three teenagers and running a small business and brokering peace amongst the gnome clans.

(Mabel could have asked for Dipper to do any or all of this for a price. And while some of it was a reluctance to rely on your magic brother for everything, more of it was just plain forgetting in the day to day of life.) 

But now the chores were done, and Mabel could spring her plan into action!

Step one!

“Heyyyyy Henry…. can you put this blindfold on please?”

Henry put down his newspaper-

(oof the things she loved most about him was his hands. They were almost comically oversized, even for a man as tall as him. Beautiful pianist fingers, a long, elegant palm, and between the two a truly astounding dexterity.)

-and asked, “How long will I have to have it on?”

Mabel thought about where step two was. “Uh, twenty five to thirty minutes while we walk?”

“Can we maybe put it on right before the surprise?”

Okay that was fair. And walking through the woods blindfolded was probably a bad idea? Yeah, it probably was.

“Okay!”

Step two! 

She had Henry kneel down so that she could actually put the blindfold on. She shivered as he was for once shorter than her, shivered as her hands tied the thick scarf around his eyes and her hips bumped into his back. Shivered as she helped him back up and took his hand. 

She could not wait for this.

Step three! 

Initially she was going to use their regular tent but Mabel was worried that if she had Henry kneel down it would give the game away so she had prepped a small pavilion tent instead, with the flap already open.

“Are we almost ready?” Henry asked.

“Mmmm hmmm,” Mabel answered, quickly taking off her sweater and skirt. She had spent a whole month crocheting lingerie for this. 

She was about to tell him to take off the blindfold, and then she paused.

She put back on her skirt, and instead took her husband into a gentle hug.

“You can take it off now.”

He took it off.

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“This is just…. outside?”

Mabel grinned. “I’ve always wanted to.”

Her grin faltered. “If that’s… if that’s okay? 

There was a pause. And then Henry lifted her up, making her squeak like every time he did that. He brought his mouth to hers. And that was all the answer she needed.

Step four! 

What Mabel had dreamed about, from the moment her husband had become born again into someone new, someone not quite human, was this moment. She wanted him to pin her down with not only his arms (stronger, far stronger than they used to be) but with vines that sprang from the ground. She wanted to grab onto his antlers as she rode him into ecstasy. She wanted the earth to bloom around him, to trail her finger up and down his skin and see mushrooms bloom from her fingertips. 

What happened instead was that they had some very pleasant but very normal sex, except it was on the ground and the ground was kind of hard. 

She…

Well poop Mabel. Way to go and Mabel it up all over again. 

They both were still sweaty and panty, but Mabel reached out to begin putting her clothes back on; this… didn’t go quite like she expected. 

“Thank you honey. That was a lot of fun,” Mabel said, super casually and hopefully not betraying the turmoil roiling within her.

Henry smiled. “Of course.”

(he hoped that Mabel hadn’t noticed that the Woodsman had almost come out once or twice; it was being outside and he wanted to break free, to test his strength against hers, to grow new life in these woods and _no_ -) 

They finished getting dressed and stepped out of the tent and

Mabel froze.

“Mabel?”

Inwardly, Mabel began to curse at herself for not bringing her bat. 

“Henry…” She looked around at the heavy fog around them both, sensed the deep knowledge that they were far from where she had led them, knew to her bone that the path home was concealed.

“I think I goofed.” 


	2. Chapter 2

It hadn’t _really_ occurred to either Stan or Dipper until they were at security that this was going to be the triplets’ first time on an airplane.

“You mean we have to take our shoes off?” Acacia asked huffily, pointedly looking down at the intricately laced Doc Martins that were on her feet.

Stan looked at Dipper. “Yeah kid, last time I flew on a plane, we just went through a metal detector.” His voice was muffled from the ridiculously oversized fake moustache he had put on because he was still banned from air travel in the United States. Stan was having so much fun pulling one over the Man that Dipper didn’t have the heart to tell Stan that the fake ID Dipper made for him was all they really needed. 

Hank’s brow furrowed. “Why do we have to take our shoes off again?”

“Well, when your mom and I were babies there was-”

“I mean, this scanner is magitec, shouldn’t it be able to handle our shoes? I mean, at this point why aren’t we taking our clothes off?”

“Hank-”

“No Dipper, let the man talk, he has a point.” 

Willow tugged on Dipper’s sleeve. “Uncle Dipper?”

Dipper was a near omniscient being of near ultimate power who was not getting freaked out by how the TSA agent was looking at them, and thus was not relieved to be moving away from this conversation. “Yes Little Fighter?”

“I forgot my ID.”

Acacia began to rummage through her purse. “Uh, I did too. Also my ticket.”

“Acacia you gave them to me, remember?” Hank said.

“Cool. Where are our tickets then?”

Hank opened his wallet.

Hank very slowly put his wallet back. 

Dipper pinched his nose. “Stan, can you take the kids over to a bench real quick while I nip home-”

“Kid. You can’t. Remember? You promised, no barging in for two weeks!”

Dipper just stared at Stan for a long, long second.

(thankfully the airport had little kiosks where one could just reprint your tickets. it… may have been a while since DIpper had flown as well.) 

—

If this was the summer of 2012, before the world ended and her brother died in front of her, before everything was made anew, Mabel would have immediately ran out and began to investigate.

But she was older, and a little bit wiser, so instead she began to plan.

“Henry, I left my bat at home, but I think there’s an extra metal pole in the tent, do you think your magic axe can like, cut a point on that?”

“It’s not a magic axe.”

“You can summon it out of hammer space and it can fuse to your arm. I think that’s a _liiiiiiiiitle_ bit magic don’t you?”

Henry wisely changed the subject.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m unraveling these pair of undies so that we have some string!” It was a tough choice between ruining her new bra or her new undies; it took a weirdly long time to crochet lingerie. But Mabel knew they were probably about to be doing a fair amount of running for their lives and proper breast support was going to be a must so good bye fancy panties with the googly eyes on the butt. 

He handed her a thick metal pole with a wicked point now at one end. She finished unravelling her crochet work, and tied one end of the yarn to her finger and the other to Henry’s.

“Okay, anchor me.” 

Henry sat down on the ground (and prayed that Mabel didn’t notice that roots immediately dug in from his legs, further cementing him down) while Mabel disappeared into the mist.

One minute passed. Then two. Then ten. And just when Henry began to get nervous, he felt the string pull taut, and then it stayed taut.

Another few minutes and Mabel came back into eyeshot, holding the string firm as she finished tracing her way back to him.

“I have no idea where anything is. Nothing looks familiar, and I definitely don’t see the path we took to get here.” 

Henry nodded as Mabel began to wind the string back up to put in her pocket. “Not surprising, but good to know.” He took a deep breath as she finished, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“So what now?”

—

“Dipper, can you believe this?!”

Dipper reminded himself that he loved Grunkle Stan, viewed him as essentially his second father, and that the last time Stan flew was in the 1980s before answering. 

“No, what?”

“15 dollars for this tiny bottle of vodka? Ridiculous! Back in my day, I brought a fifth on the plane and no one even said boo!”

“A fif- Grunkle Stan, why were you bringing a handle on the plane?”

Stan’s fake moustache finally gave up the ghost and detached from Stan’s face, and Dipper could see the sweat beading on his upper lip. “Oh, no reason at all!” Stan said, as the flight attendants began to buckle in, and the lights dimmed.

Dipper suddenly remembered a day from that summer, with Robbie and Fight Fighters and-

“Grunkle Stan, I thought you weren’t afraid of heights any more?”

The engines roared and the blood drained from Stan’s face.

“I’m not scared of heights! _You’re_ scared of heights!”

“Grunkle Stan…Grunkle Stan! You gotta leave your seat belt on! Grunkle _S͖̭̯͈t̗͚̼a҉̯̱̙̪n̫̗̘̰̫̮͝!͏ “_

It was of course at this moment that Willow, who had also been growing paler and paler, immediately began to vomit copiously into her barf bag.

—

"Here’s some leaves Hen.”

“Go ahead and add them to the fire.”

Mabel tucked them in under the wood, where small licks of flame were already beginning to bloom, and then sat next to Henry. After twenty years together it was like magnets how they clicked together; Mabel’s head tucked in under Henry’s arm and her against his side as he wrapped her long arm around them. 

“I’m glad you thought to have food out here,” Henry said. “Even if it was…. organ shaped.”

Mabel winced. Perhaps using her penis and vagina cookie cutters on the sandwiches and cookies was a little too much.

“Sorry Henry.”

He smiled. “No, it’s fine. We got to eat tonight, we have enough for another day while we figure this out…. we’re together. That’s what matters.” 

Her hand found his, laced them together, and she sighed happily.

The fire grew. The night began to set in. 

They slept spooned up in the tent. Mabel offered to be the big spoon, to keep watch like they had so many times in the past but-

“Mabel I…. I think from now on I’m the big spoon.”

That was really hot. Henry’s face told her that he probably would not appreciate being told that so instead she just curled up into his embrace. 

The fire died down. The moon came out. Mabel breathed in the scent of tree sap and wood smoke and old book, and felt her eyes grow heavy.

A piercing cry broke the night.

Mabel felt Henry stiffen up, and knew without seeing that his antlers had appeared…. mainly because little twigs sprouted from his arms in shock.

“Mabel, you know who lives in these woods better than me, did you recognize that sound?”

“No.”

The cry rang out again, closer now. Mabel scrambled out of Henry’s arms, grabbing the metal pole in one hand, while he summoned his axe. 

The cry again, now almost near eyeshot. Mabel winced. It was a piercing cry, the treble and decibel reminding her of the kids as babies, waking in the night from hunger.

The cry rang out one final time and then a creature appeared from out of the pines. 

It was humanoid, and it was dragging itself on its forearms towards Mabel and Henry. The skin, dried leather and dirt, exposed muscle and bone in big long tears, as if the skin was made to fit a figure three times larger than intended. What looked like old sheets, stained with blood and dirt, dripped off of it in strips. The face and the remnants of skin were covered in light, fine hair. There was no hair on top of the head, only tiny flakes of dried skin coming off in waves. One side was redder than the other, as if the blood in the body had come to rest on that side. And above all, the smell of sour milk, drifting off the creature in waves…

“Christ,” Henry swore under his breath. 

At that noise, the creature’s head whipped up, and looked straight at Mabel and Henry. This time it did not cry, but it roared, loud and shrill and long enough that Mabel thought her ears would bleed. Then it started to sprint towards them-

Wait. Sprint wasn’t the right word. 

Not when it was still moving mainly on its forearms and hands, almost like a crawl, if crawling could be done at 35 miles an hour. 

Why on earth was it doing that when it could run or at least lope on all fours?

She turned to see Henry. She saw the Woodsman standing in his place, saw Him quivering as if to lope and meet the creature half way, to test might against might.

The creature let out another howl, one that made Mabel’s breasts hurt.

Wait. Wait, that was weird.

The sour milk smell was stronger, and the cry ever more piercing, and memories were coming from the hindbrain, and-

“Henry.”

The Woodsman didn’t turn, only tensed, ready to launch any second now-

“Henry _that’s a baby!”_

A whip crack as he turned his head, hands and feet swinging wildly around his head. 

For a second the three of them stood frozen in the clearing, still from the sudden ring of Mabel’s voice. But then the creat- the baby went to move forward again. 

An idea sprang into Mabel’s head, birthed from early aughts cable tv.

“Hey! You!”

The baby looked at Mabel.

“ _Bad_ baby!”

The baby froze. Then lifted a foot.

“No sir! I said _no!”_

The cry began to emanate from the baby again, but softer this time.

“I mean it! Go lay down!”

The moon, which had been out, became covered by clouds again. The baby looked at them for a second longer, then slunk back into the woods. 

Antlers still out, and gruntin.g from the pain of bones resetting, Henry walked over and put a hand on her shoulders. 

“Honey?”

The adrenaline crash finally hit her.

“Henry, what the _fuck_?” 

Mabel felt herself drop to her knees, tears rolling down her face, as Henry fell alongside her. 

—-

Thirty long, _long_ minutes later, everyone was finally settled.

“What were you going to do Stan? Open up the emergency door and jump out?”

Stan, whose seatbelt was now magically fused for the duration of the flight, chose for once to say nothing. 

Dipper pinched the bridge of his nose, and looked across the aisle. 

“Little Fighter, how you doing?”

Willow, who her siblings had moved from the middle seat to the aisle, smiled wanly. 

“Good?”

That was as good as he was going to get. Okay. Time to relax. Dipper pulled out the eye mask that Mabel had made him. He couldn’t sleep per se, but he was looking forward to relaxing and dropping at least the magic concealing his eyes and 

“Uncle Dipper?”

“Yeah Acacia?”

“The tv in the chair says this flight is going to be almost six hours.”

“Trust me kid, six hours is better than ten to twelve between multiple airports.”

Acacia said nothing. If Dipper wasn’t so frazzled, he probably would have noticed the almost frantic tapping of her foot escalate into full on leg shaking. 

—-

The sun was rising.

Well. They couldn’t see the sun, unlike the moon. But the sky was lightening so safe money was on the sun rising.

They were still sitting on the ground. Mabel was still holding Henry’s hand. 

With the coming of the sun, it finally felt safe to talk. 

“This…” Henry cleared his throat. “This is pretty big isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Should we call Dipper?”

Mabel thought about it. And then she thought about it again. On one hand, Dipper had sworn on his blood and his name to not bother them for two weeks, and that was pretty serious. On the other hand [(a hand with a scar that ached suddenly](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F2628671%2Fchapters%2F11360404&t=ZmE1MGEzMTczMGRlZDM3MWYzYWJhMDZlMWYwMmIyY2RkNWM2NTMzNCxDSU9Hd1BGUg%3D%3D&b=t%3AS3ysjbPhz5pOAapDaatLbQ&p=https%3A%2F%2Fseiya234.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F641801647670132736%2Fand-all-the-trees-of-the-field-will-clap-their&m=1&ts=1612070130)) Mabel knew that if it really came down to it, Dipper would come to her in a heart beat.

He was her brother. He would always come if she asked. 

(that was a burden in and of itself, but for right now, not a bad thing)

But she was more than just the sister of Dipper.

She was Mabel Anna Pines. Mabel Pines had three babies at once and survived. Mabel Pines dated a vampire for eight months and her demon brother didn’t find out about the vampire part at all. Mabel Pines once outdrank an entire fraternity at a bar.

Mabel was a sister and a niece and a wife and a mother and above all, far more than that. Whatever she put her mind to, she did it, and that was that. 

She could handle this.

No.

“I think…I think we should get this Henry,” she said, squeezing his hand harder.

Henry nodded. 

“I was thinking that too.”

They sat there for a few more minutes, letting the sun rise, drawing strength from each other, from the contact of their skin and the drawing of their breath, before finally Mabel got up.

“Okay. What next?”

“I believe you should talk to me.”

They both turned around. Mabel beamed.

“Multibear!”

—-

The wheels were still about forty feet above the ground but everyone had clearly already turned their cell phones on and Stan had finally let go of his death grip on Dipper’s arm.

“So.”

“Mmf.” They had landed but Stan still wasn’t quite untensed yet.

“That happened.” 

“Mmm.”

“I mean, I never expected Acacia of all people to have a panic attack, but when I assume I make an ass of you and me.”

“Nnngh.” 

“And really, if that woman had just given Willow her extra barf bag when she asked, Willow wouldn’t have accidentally thrown up on her.” 

“Ugh.”

Dipper’s voice lifted! “But at least Hank enjoyed the ride, so there’s that right?”

Silence, then finally Stan spoke.

“You’re taking us home.”

“Oh absolutely, fuck planes.” 


End file.
